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Most historians and social scientists treat cities as mere settings. In fact, urban places shape our experience. There, daily life has a faster, artificial rhythm and, for good and ill, people and agencies affect each other through externalities (uncompensated effects) whose impact is inherently geographical. In economic terms, urban concentration enables efficiency and promotes innovation while raising the costs of land, housing, and labour. Socially, it can alienate or provide anonymity, while fostering new forms of community. It creates congestion and pollution, posing challenges for governance. Some effects extend beyond urban borders, creating cultural change. The character of cities varies by country and world region, but it has generic qualities, a claim best tested by comparing places that are most different. These qualities intertwine, creating built environments that endure. To fully comprehend such path dependency, we need to develop a synthetic vision that is historically and geographically informed.

Creeping Conformity, the first history of suburbanization in Canada, provides a geographical perspective – both physical and social – on Canada's suburban past. Shaped by internal and external migration, decentralization of employment, and increased use of the streetcar and then the automobile, the rise of the suburb held great social promise, reflecting the aspirations of Canadian families for more domestic space and home ownership. After 1945 however, the suburbs became stereotyped as generic, physically standardized, and socially conformist places. By 1960, they had grown further away – physically and culturally – from their respective parent cities, and brought unanticipated social and environmental consequences. Government intervention also played a key role, encouraging mortgage indebtedness, amortization, and building and subdivision regulations to become the suburban norm. Suburban homes became less affordable and more standardized, and for the first time, Canadian commentators began to speak disdainfully of 'the suburbs,' or simply 'suburbia.' Creeping Conformity traces how these perceptions emerged to reflect a new suburban reality. Electronic Format Disclaimer: Two images removed at the request of the rights holder

Each year, North Americans spend as much money fixing up their homes as they do buying new ones. This obsession with improving our dwellings has given rise to a multibillion-dollar industry that includes countless books, consumer magazines, a cable television network, and thousands of home improvement stores. Building a Market charts the rise of the home improvement industry in the United States and Canada from the end of World War I into the late 1950s. Drawing on the insights of business, social, and urban historians, and making use of a wide range of documentary sources, Richard Harris shows how the middle-class preference for home ownership first emerged in the 1920s-and how manufacturers, retailers, and the federal government combined to establish the massive home improvement market and a pervasive culture of Do-It-Yourself. Deeply insightful, Building a Market is the carefully crafted history of the emergence and evolution of a home improvement revolution that changed not just American culture but the American landscape as well.

Abstract: During the Great Depression, many tens of thousands of owners and investors in residential property were devastated by mortgage defaults. Because contemporaries and historians have shown little interest in these people, we have little idea who they were. The only way to address this question is through an examination of local sources. Using land titles, property assessment records, city directories, and newspaper accounts, this case study of Hamilton, Ontario, provides a plausible, occasionally surprising, picture. The borrowers most likely to lose their property were those with high ratio mortgages, landlords (as opposed to homeowners), and surprisingly, those who owned the more expensive properties. Plenty of workers were affected, because they were numerous, and a high proportion owned homes. So, too, were many married women, widows, and spinsters, as both borrowers and lenders. Proportionately, those owners and investors most likely to experience losses were white-collar workers, the self-employed, and widows, while spinsters fared relatively well. Abstract: Pendant la Grande Dépression, plusieurs dizaines de milliers de propriétaires et d'investisseurs dans le secteur de l'immobilier résidentiel ont été dévastés par des défauts de paiement de prêts hypothécaires. Comme les chercheurs et historiens contemporains se sont peu intéressés à ces personnes, il est difficile de savoir qui elles étaient. Seul l'examen des sources locales peut permettre de répondre à cette question. À partir des titres fonciers, des registres d'évaluation des propriétés, des annuaires de la ville et des articles de journaux, cette étude de cas de la ville de Hamilton, en Ontario, peint un portrait tantôt plausible, tantôt surprenant. Les emprunteurs les plus susceptibles de perdre leur propriété étaient ceux qui avaient des hypothèques à ratio élevé, c'est-à-dire les logeurs (par opposition aux titulaires d'une maison) et, étonnamment, ceux qui possédaient les propriétés les plus dispendieuses. Beaucoup de travailleurs ont été touchés, parce qu'ils étaient nombreux et parce qu'une forte proportion d'entre eux étaient propriétaires de maisons. Il en va de même pour de nombreuses femmes mariées, veuves et célibataires, à la fois en tant qu'emprunteuses et en tant que prêteuses. Proportionnellement, les propriétaires et les investisseurs les plus susceptibles de subir des pertes étaient les cols blancs, les travailleurs indépendants et les veuves, alors que les femmes célibataires s'en sortaient relativement bien.